Notice: When Minnesota was added as a free state in 1858, and Oregon in 1859, the balance in the Senate went from 13:13 to 15:13. Kansas made it 16:13.
“Following the Leavenworth Constitution’s defeat, the Legislature again crafted a new document the following year, dubbed the Wyandotte Constitution. The convention assembled at Wyandotte - (Kansas City) on July 5, 1859. After much debate, a new constitution was submitted to the people for a vote which passed on October 4, 1859. It was then sent to the Federal Government for ratification. Following numerous long debates in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate, President James Buchanan authorized Kansas to become the 34th state of United States on January 29, 1861. Only six days after Kansas was entered into the Union as a free state, the Confederate States of America formed between seven Southern states that had seceded from the United States in the previous two months.”
http://www.legendsofkansas.com/kansasterritory.html
Regarding the conflict between northern manufacturing interests (and finance) and rural interests, this was a contributing cause, along with slavery. While I don’t know how to construct a meaningful test of the extent to which each were causes, it seems to me that almost all wars result from miscalculation. Clearly, the cost of the civil war was way disproportionate to the benefit of the civil war. The number of lives lost, and the enmity consequent to the war was multiple times the market value of the slaves of the south.
Ending slavery in the south by gradual emancipation or by compensated emancipation might seem logical, but you have to remember that slaves were a large percentage of the population in many of the southern states. Democracy only works well when the vast majority of voters are in the middle class, not when the majority of voters are ignorant and poor. Look what’s happening in California and other open-border states, with the influx of poor and uneducated people from other countries. I don’t care about color, but about education and job skills, and also their work ethic, family values and patriotism. Latin Americans turn into great citizens, but only a certain percentage can be absorbed at any given time.
So, ending slavery in the north through abolition as in Massachusetts, or gradual emancipation as in Pennsylvania, was easy because there weren’t many up there. Ending slavery in South Carolina or Mississippi was always going to be difficult.
Our country has always and will always deal with the tension between freedom and equality, because we’re democratic. Trump intuits this and desires reform of our immigration laws and to restore the American dream for our people.